(Reuters) - The Thai army cracked down on red-shirted anti-government protesters on Monday, a day after Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared emergency in Bangkok after the protesters forced the cancellation of an Asian summit. Thailand is fast running out of politically neutral T-shirt colours, as several extra-parliamentary groups have adopted different colours for their activists on the street. Here are some questions and answers about the main groups involved and what they are agitating for.
WHAT DO THE RED SHIRTS WANT?
Supporters of ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, they want Abhisit to resign and the holding of new elections, which they would be well placed to win.
Thaksin’s supporters say Abhisit only became premier last December because of parliamentary defections the army engineered.
On Monday, thousands of “red shirts” were at Government House in Bangkok, which they have besieged for nearly three weeks, preventing Abhisit from entering his main office.
Their action echoes the tactics of the anti-Thaksin “yellow shirts,” who occupied it for several months last year.
They have the bit between their teeth after forcing the cancellation of the summit. The event was already canceled once last year, before Abhisit became prime minister, and he had trumpeted it as proof Thailand was returning to normal.
WHO ARE THE NEW MOB IN BLUE SHIRTS?
On Friday evening in Pattaya, a new group wearing dark blue T-shirts bearing the phrase “Protect the Institution” -- thought to be a reference to the monarchy -- clashed with the red shirts.
The identity and aims of the masked men in blue shirts armed with sticks, clubs and iron rods remain unclear. Red shirts have accused them of being a militia of pro-government thugs, perhaps affiliated to the military. The government denies this.
WHERE ARE THE YELLOW SHIRTS?
The yellow shirts of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have not been involved in recent clashes but are gearing up to join in if the red shirts look like winning.
The color honors Thailand’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej -- many Thais wear yellow on Mondays, the day on which the king was born.
A mix of royalists, academics, business people and retired military, PAD in some ways represents Thailand’s old elite, which was horrified by the ascent of Thaksin and his populist policies, which secured him the votes -- and the devotion -- of the poor.
Last year, when a pro-Thaksin government was in power, yellow-tinged protests -- involving another siege of Government House that lasted for months -- turned ugly and a state of emergency was enforced for a couple of weeks in September.
Their most audacious and disruptive action was the storming of Bangkok’s two main airports in late November, stranding up to 250,000 foreign tourists and cutting the country’s main international link for over a week.
The yellow shirts ended their protests in December, claiming victory when the constitutional court disqualified the pro-Thaksin prime minister for electoral fraud.
ARE THERE OTHER POLITICALLY CHARGED T-SHIRTS?
The king’s emergence from hospital in a pink shirt and blazer in November 2007 sparked a national fashion for pink shirts.
WHAT’S BENEATH THE SHIRTS?
A deeply divided country, which has seen 18 coups since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.
Thailand has been in a state of political crisis on or off since late 2005, when the streets protests that eventually helped oust Thaksin began.
The media-friendly color coding has kept the groups in the public eye and brings back memories of revolutions in Eastern Europe -- Ukraine’s 2004-2005 “Orange Revolution,” for example -- although those places never had such a color clash.
Source: Reuters
Writing by Gillian Murdoch; Editing by Alan Raybould and Sanjeev Miglani
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